Over the past four decades our fair city has enjoyed striking improvements to our City Center and Northshore areas in large part due to citizen input and the guidance of the former Urban Design Studio. We are now widely recognized as a hotbed of entrepreneurship, neighborhood revitalization and good Urban Design. At the most recent City Council meeting, the leader and recognized “Guru” of our Urban Design success, Mr. Stroud Watson, addressed the council with his serious concerns over the proposed 7-story structure on Cowart Street.
Mr. Watson spoke to both the total disregard of good design principles for the street level use of the proposed building and the ill-advised abandonment of the Regional Planning Association’s staff recommendations on existing height limitations and its incompatibility with close by historic structures, which have been the backbone of the decades-long restoration efforts in that neighborhood.
The City Council chose to override the well-reasoned recommendations of both its professional planning staff and the Planning Commission in favor of the “vote” of a hastily called meeting of a neighborhood association that does not even encompass the proposed project site. Unfortunately for all of Chattanooga’s citizens, this block-long, 7-story parking deck with housing wrapped around it, is both too tall for its historic context but also completely ignores the opportunity to encourage the vitality of the street as the proposed new Form Based Code would advocate. There is no retail use of any kind planned on the street, and the height and mass of the structure is very much out of character with the delightful existing historic structures as well as the city-owned Chattanoogan Hotel.
While we must respect the commitment and dedication of our current City Council members, none of them have any architectural or urban design background. This is where the expertise of the city’s professional design staff and the Planning Commission should be given consideration. There are few who would disagree that quality growth is the future of our city: this is not the time to allow poor design driven only by the bottom line to hold sway.
This project will be heard again on its final reading Tuesday night in the City Council’s chambers at 1000 Lindsay Street at 6 p.m. This decision is important for the future of the entire city, and this would be a good time to contact your City Councilperson by phone or to show up in person.
Garnet Chapin
Urban Designer